Oscars producers on landing Queen, going host-less and dealing with this year's 'curveballs'
LOS ANGELES - Producing the Academy Awards is a hugely challenging job under the best of circumstances - and it's fair to say that the job this year has come with some, shall we say, unexpected complications.
From planned host Kevin Hart dropping out in December amid controversy over past homophobic jokes and tweets to the firestorm over a now-abandoned plan to present the awards for four key categories during commercial breaks, the producers of this year's Oscars show, Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss, have had to roll with a few changes along the way.
Throw in the added pressure of trying to honor the film academy's pledge to keep the often-bloated show to three hours and attempting to boost the ratings from the all-time low they hit last year and you could argue that right now, they've got one of the toughest gigs in show business.
Just days before
